I don't care what most people say, Alien 3 is a damn good film. It's dark, it's gritty and it's refreshingly downbeat. It was a damn good end to the Alien trilogy. Unfortunately though, because of the negative reaction to the film and the desire to make some more cash out of a potentially lucrative franchise, Alien: Resurrection got made. And boy is it bad.

Right from the very first second it's obvious you're watching a turkey. The music is terrible, the special effects are sub-par and the visual style reminds me of The Fifth Element – a film I hate with all my heart. Then you have the awful Star Trek costumes and soldiers who look like they're holding toy guns. It's a comic book.

What I like most about the original trilogy is the way that despite being set in the future and despite being about Aliens with acid for blood, the environments felt realistic. The Nostromo felt like a living breathing spaceship, the colony in Aliens felt authentically low-tech and the prison planet in Alien 3 was grim and dirty. Alien: Resurrection, though, feels like exactly what it is: a film. Not once could I suspend my disbelief. The sets look like sets (something that should never happen) and you can just imagine them filming in some large hanger and then someone shouting 'Cut!' The environments are horribly artificial. They're TV quality.

Then there are all the pointless gimmicks. Not one of them works, whether it be the breath identification, the metal detector gloves (more cheap TV quality sci-fi) or the ship's computer being called Father just because it's oh-so clever in light of the computer in Alien being called Mother (Father, by the way, sounds like Stephen Hawking). And then there's the spitting Aliens (the spitting effect is shite) and the bastard creation that is the Newborn. And speaking of the Newborn, how in the hell did that get past the design stages? It looks like hunchback yellow turd with a potbelly and National Geographic tits. It's not in the least bit scary and the attempts to humanise it are hilarious. I'm supposed to have sympathy for its demise? Sorry, I could only sit there laughing my head off.

But the Aliens in Resurrection aren't much better either. They all look like someone has blown their nose on them. They're covered in too much slime and gunk. And then, like the Newborn, there are the depressingly stupid attempts to try and give them character and to try and make the audience feel sympathy for them. Do I care that two Aliens decide to kill one of their own? No, of course not.

But what about the characters? Well, the film doesn't have much time for them and neither do I. Every single one is a cardboard cut out. You've got the evil corporate/military guy, the supposedly lovable rogues and the character who turns out to be a robot. Haven't we been over all of this before? And Ripley is a waste of space too. Sure Weaver tries her best to give her character layers, and she has a bit of fun being bad, but Whedon's script is so thin that it all comes off as a bunch of soundbites, or trailer moments. "I heard you run into these things before. What did you do?" "I died." Ooh, pithy! But I guess that's what happens when you give writing duties to a fanboy and the creator of the hideously adolescent Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, to be fair to Weaver, although perhaps not to Whedon, Ripley does have one good scene, the one where she kills one of her clones. It's the only scene with genuine feeling. Too bad then that it ends with more dire-logue: "It must be a chick thing."

In light of these multiple atrocities, I hoped that at least the action would be a welcome distraction. It isn't. The worst offender has to be the basketball scene. As if the fight isn't bad enough with its brief burst of techno music (I can't adequately express how awful the musical score is), there's the shoot-out with its toy guns and the ridiculous ricocheted shot. It's yet more comic book crap. And the underwater scene, while a good idea on paper, fails to get the blood pumping. In fact, the only thing I kept thinking during the whole scene was, 'Boy, they can hold their breath for a long time.'

Oh, but the worst moment in the film, worse even than the Newborn, has to be when a man with an Alien inside him, who's convulsing, and who indeed gets shot three or four times as he's walking and giving 'birth', manages to punch his attacker in the face, disarm him and brutally beat him up. It's obviously meant to be crowd-pleasing moment, but the only people it's going to please are retards and fuckwits.

But there are many other moronic things in the film. There's the way Ripley has acid for blood yet apparently has a normal physiology. There's the way that Ripley uses her blood as a convenient way to get her out of tricky situations. There's the way that The Company, the real bad guys in the series, are disposed of. There's the way that grown adults refer to the Aliens as 'nasties' and 'monsters'. There's the way that Call inexplicably has a sample of the General's breath (how did she get that?). There's the way that Call gets shot, falls into the water and miraculously reappears somewhere else. There are the Taxi Driver-style electronic holsters that one of the characters wears. And there are the amusingly awful moments of ultra-violence – the General saluting and then picking his own brain, the baby Alien shooting through the bloke's head, the Newborn biting someone's head off and the Newborn squeezing someone's face off. Way to crucify a once great series.

Alien 3, by and large, is considered a poor film. Most people see it as a lazy re-hash of the first instalment and most people hate the way that it dispensed with the other surviving characters of Aliens. Well, I can kind of see their point. Alien 3 does opt for the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere of the first and it does have the same stalk and slash mentality – there are no big guns here. And yes, it does rather ruthlessly kill off the characters of Aliens. But I can't really see it being any other way. The Alien series isn't about Hicks or Newt. It's about Ripley, and it's always been her alone against the Alien. To have Hicks and Newt tagging along would feel like Aliens Revisited. It would just be, for the second time, Ripley fighting the Alien to protect her surrogate daughter. At least here she gets to do something different. It isn't a fight for survival, or a fight to protect Newt. It's a fight to keep the Alien away from The Company.

One of the many things that annoyed and enraged me about Alien: Resurrection (now there's an Alien film truly worthy of revulsion) was the way that they dispensed with the main villain of the piece, the mysterious, all-seeing company. That was one of the fun things in the series. You felt like there was something bigger and more important going on. And the filmmakers developed it superbly. In the first film it was only on the periphery. But in the second film, with Burke, it was brought to the front. So I like the way that Alien 3 develops it even further. The Company has an almost Orwellian presence. It seems to see everything. And so Ripley's fight to kill the Alien before The Company can get its hands on it seems entirely convincing. Indeed, there's a great scene – one of those rabble-rousing moments you only see in films – where she explains The Company's motivation to the prisoners. It's an excellent nod to the fans and one that gets you even more fully behind her cause. Don't trust those greedy capitalists, man.

Of course, the company man in the film (Aaron, played by Ralph Brown) is a stupid sheep, but rather than ape what Cameron did with Burke – and make him totally untrustworthy – he's just a man trying to do his job and earn a living. And at the end, after lots of abuse from the prisoners, he actually grows a set of balls and takes a swipe at one of the company men. Too bad, then, that this action gets him killed. I mean, during the final sequence, when all the prisoners are being chased by the Alien in the maze, he finds a quiet room and sits it out. I thought, then, that this might show a new dawning of intelligence. But instead, after looking like he's been saved, he does something brave, but stupid, and gets himself killed. I guess you've got to know when to pick your fights.

Another complaint that people seem to toss in the direction of Alien 3 is that the characters all look the same. Well, personally, I think the characters stand out pretty well. Sure they may all have shaved craniums, but I think that the writing and the acting are pretty damn strong. They all have distinct personalities – which is a pretty good feat when you're dealing with rapists, murders and pederasts – and it's only the ones that get killed in seconds that feel generic. Dillon stands out the most. He's the kind of hardnut that can kick your head in and say something poetic at the same time. Plus, he takes the Alien on in hand-to-hand combat and insults the Alien's fighting skills as he's being killed. How can you not dig a man like that? I also think that Charles Dance is great. He gets killed off rather early, but he makes his scenes count. And he even gets to sleep with Ripley. Sure, in film tradition, this means that he has to die, but hey, at least he went there. And Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Pete Postlethwaite and Paul McGann are superb. Plus I like the way that one of the more peripheral characters survives the whole ordeal.

And the film is also quite poetic. The cremation scene in particular stands out. It has some great dialogue, a fantastic score and the Alien birth is beautiful in a perverse way. And the final moments, too, are great.

But what of the Alien in this film? Well, aside from the occasional dodgy bit of effects work in the maze sequence – it sometimes moves like its got piles – it's excellent. It's certainly better than the CGI and gloop covered monsters of Resurrection. And it gets some pretty good moments. The killing where the blood sprays over Paul McGann's face is nice, as is the amusing killing of Brain Glover. And I also like the bit where it meets Ripley face to face. Somehow, in the Jeunet film, the Aliens were no longer threatening, but in Alien 3 it still has the right stuff.

And I think the film would have been a fitting end to the series. Ripley finally meets The Company and she sacrifices herself to deny them and to save mankind. That's pretty good going in my book. And I wouldn't have thought the character would have had anywhere to go if they somehow would have managed to bring her back to life. Well, when I first saw it, I had hopes for Resurrection, but unfortunately, I was proved right. The series should have ended here.

Directed by David Fincher
Written by David Giler, Walter Hill and Larry Ferguson
Produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill
Original Music by Elliot Goldenthal
Cinematography by Alex Thomson
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance and Ralph Brown

Running Time: 114 mins

Rated R for monster, monster violence

Thank the cinematic gods for pluralisation. ‘Oh, what’s that? Alien only had one critter? Well, let’s slap an ‘s’ on the end of the title and have hundreds of the motherfuckers. It’ll be great.’ And indeed it is.

Diehard fans of Alien may bemoan the different approach that Cameron takes – lots of guns and the Aliens themselves reduced to bugs to be blown to pieces by machinegun fire – but the film is true to Scott’s original while taking it in a new direction. It’s a perfect sequel.

The fidelity to the original includes the creepy atmosphere and the slow build-up, but this film has more action and more of an emotional pull. Indeed, it’s the relationship between Ripley and Newt that elevates it to something more than just an excellent action film.

The final act, which sees Ripley head off alone into the Alien nest in order to rescue what has become her surrogate daughter, has a whiff of absurdity to it. Skinny woman with a massive gun and flamethrower attached to her and she’s going to kick butt? Yeah, right. But because Sigourney Weaver and James Cameron play it so straight, and because you’ve become so attached to the characters over the course of the film, it seems like the only thing that could happen. You totally believe in Ripley. This is something she just has to do.

And it helps that there are no attempts to indulge in empty grandstanding. This is just a simple case of a mother going into hell to rescue her daughter. And as everyone knows, there’s nothing in the world you should fear more than a woman who’s trying to get her child back. Mothers are tougher than any Alien Queen, a point illustrated by the fabulous moment when Ripley burns the Alien Queen’s eggs. There Ripley is, just trying to get Newt back to safety. She’s happy to leave the Aliens alone. But then one of the eggs opens, and with a fantastic look from Ripley, one that says she’s going to kick the everloving shit out of you, she lets rip with the flamethrower. She burns the eggs, she shoots the Aliens and fires grenades at the Alien Queen. It’s a phenomenally good scene – aside from crackwhores and morbidly obese shut-ins, I believe any mother in the world would do this for their kid; they’d go into an Alien nest, rescue their child and fuck it up bad if any pissant motherfucker had the temerity to try and fuck with them. You just don’t fuck with a mum and her kid.

But back to grandstanding, one could argue that the ‘Get away from her you bitch!’ moment is an example of empty of grandstanding. But I’d strongly disagree with that. That moment is so iconic because of the sincerity of Weaver’s delivery and the truth inherent in the line – don’t stand between a mother and her child. But fair enough, it’s also iconic because the power loader is so damn cool.

However, the bond between Ripley and Newt was less explicit in the original theatrical version. But in the Special Edition we get a great scene where we find out, because she spent so much time drifting through space in hypersleep after surviving the Nostromo, that Ripley’s real child has died as an old woman. It’s a great little scene and gives more depth to the relationship between Ripley and Newt. I’m kind of baffled as to why it was cut out.

However, other stuff in the Special Edition doesn’t fare quite as well. The least successful inclusion is the scene on the colony where we see Newt’s parents find the derelict alien ship from the first film. It’s kind of pointless and it’s not particularly well filmed or acted – I can easily see why it was cut out. And plus, part of the joy of Aliens was not knowing exactly what happened on the colony. It was creepier when we could try and imagine it ourselves.

I’m also not a huge fan of the sentry gun sequences. Most people tend to love them, thinking they add to the tension. But to me they only seem to highlight the budgetary restrictions. You seem to see the same bit of footage of an Alien exploding over and over again. Plus, for me, there was greater tension when you saw less of the Aliens. The longer you have to wait for the attack, the bigger the pay-off because you’ve been wound up that little bit more.

But although the big attack where the Aliens come crashing through the ceiling is magnificent, I prefer the first encounter; the one where the cocky Marines are slaughtered in the hive. What makes the scene so fantastic is the way Cameron uses the Marines' cameras, the ones they have strapped to them, to add to the confusion of the attack. It makes it even more visceral - we see a lot of the action take place on a series of monitors.

But this use of monitor footage also serves as a nod to Alien. When Dallas and his crew head off to the derelict ship this technique is used to build tension. But Aliens takes the concept that little bit further.

Another concept in Alien that is developed by Cameron is the use of the motion trackers. Scott used it briefly in the scene where Dallas is killed, but here it’s a main feature of the film. It’s used all the time. And again it’s incredibly effective. It’s a tool that’s meant to help the Marines, a piece of technology that helps them do their job better, but it only makes them more paranoid and confused. They can rarely see their enemy. And even when they think they know where the Aliens are coming from, things are turned upside down because the Aliens will come crashing through the ceiling instead of through the door like they expect.

And it’s this unseen enemy, and the Marines' cockiness, that makes it feel like a Vietnam War film. The Marines start off with complete confidence and then are gradually broken down by an enemy that is less well equipped but that can adapt to its environment better.

But although the militaristic aspect of the film is always going to be reminiscent of Vietnam, it also feels a bit like a Western. The Marines keep getting attacked and they’re gradually running out of ammunition. It’s like the Indians are storming the fort – they can only be repelled for so long. But in that way it also feels a bit like the film Zulu – superior numbers will eventually wear down a well equipped force with fewer bodies.

However, going back to the way that Cameron builds upon the ideas that were started in Alien, I love the use of Bishop in the film. After Ash in the first film, we maybe expect another unhinged robot or at very least a company stooge. And at the beginning Ripley treats him like shit. But after hinting that he might be another android psycho, he turns out to be heroic. And it’s a lovely moment when Ripley finally tells Bishop that he did well. In a film that is relentlessly violent, it’s nice to have a moment that has such warmth.

A much smaller nod to Alien that I like is the use of a countdown at the end. With the reactor about to explode we’re told how long Ripley has to reach a minimum safe distance. It raises the stakes even higher when Ripley has to save Newt – not only does Ripley have to save her daughter from the Aliens but she has to do it before everything is blown to shit.

Aside from building on the concepts started in the first film, another one of Cameron’s strengths is creating memorable characters. No one gets lost in the mix. All the grunts stand out. My personal favourite is Hudson (Bill Paxton), the whinging scaredy cat who eventually grows a massive set of balls and kicks some serious Alien butt before being killed. Every line he utters is a work of genius. Then there’s Vasquez. I don’t know what it is about Cameron, but he always seems to be able to create believably tough female characters. Therefore it doesn’t ring untrue when she kicks an Alien in the head and shoots it in the face. You believe this woman is capable of doing this. And of course, then there’s Hicks. He’s probably the toughest Marine, but there’s also a sexual undercurrent between him and Ripley. Thankfully there’s no explicit romance in the film, but with the way that Hicks shows her how to use a gun and with the tracker he gives her, quipping that it doesn’t mean they’re engaged, you know it’s on the cards. And at the end Ripley, Newt and Hicks are like a small family. Again it’s another reason why the film works so well – you believe in the emotional connection between the characters.

But smaller characters stand out as well. Drake and the Sergeant are great in what limited time they have, and I love Gorman, the poindexter turned good. And then there’s Burke, who proves that a greedy company man will always be worse than an acid-drooling monster.

What makes Alien such an effective horror film is how quiet it is. After all, most horror films make the mistake of equating fear with noise. But that's often a mistake, as silence is usually infinitely more effective. And so it is with Alien. The scariest moments are all devoid of intrusive scoring, jagged editing and overblown sound effects.

One of the best examples is when Brett is killed. He has to chase after Jones (the cat) and he's led into a dark corner of the ship. You know he's going to get killed but Ridley Scott knows that you know. Therefore the sequence is dragged out. All the time you're waiting. You're waiting for the inevitable. But Scott doesn't rush things. He racks up the tension by having Brett wander for an inordinate length of time and by having him wash his face in a shower of dripping water as chains rattle in the background. And when the Alien does appear, it's not with a sudden jolt. It just appears quietly behind Brett before killing him. And the way that the death is played on the face of the cat, which has a look of almost stunned curiosity, makes the whole sequence incredibly spooky. It's not really a crash, bang, wallop sort of horror film.

Not that there aren't any jump moments. There are actually quite a few. But because the lead-up is so quiet and ominous it makes the pay-off a whole lot more effective. For example, when Kane looks into the egg. Again the sequence takes its time, racking up the tension to breaking point with the discovery of the ship and the slow exploration of it, but when he finally has a peek and the facehugger leaps out, it has the perfect timing of a great joke.

Another fantastic piece of timing is when the Alien takes Dallas. You go through another long, drawn out sequence of him scurrying through narrow air vents before the Alien finally pops out of a dark corner. But although the moment is fantastically timed, the lead up is where the fun lies. And I have to say that the lead up is probably the most frightening thing in the film. Dallas scurries through narrow corridors searching for the Alien, but you know it's futile - we know that he won't find it and that it will find him and that it'll kill him. And the dark, claustrophobic corridors are full of iris-shaped doors that open and close slowly and forebodingly, which really does add to the air of dread that fills the sequence. And the tracker is the icing on the cake – it racks up the tension to breaking point.

The second most frightening sequence is when Ripley is finally alone in the ship. She sets the Nostromo to self-destruct so that she can take the shuttle but then with strobe lights flashing all around her she sees the Alien. She then goes back and tries to reverse the self-destruct sequence, but it's too late. It's frightening because Ripley has to run around the ship, not knowing where the Alien might be. No longer does she have the option of just hiding. And with everyone dead she no longer has anyone to talk to or help her out. She's all alone. But perversely, once everyone's dead, the film finally gets loud. There's a countdown sequence (which is brilliant in the way that it raises the stakes - not only does she have to face a terrifying monster, but she's against the clock now as well) and the ship begins to destruct. Just when Ripley might have needed the silence to find out where the Alien is, she has to run around in cacophony of noise knowing that the Alien could be anywhere.

But the silence comes back in the final sequence, and it's quite ingenious the way that the Alien is camouflaged in the shuttle. I nearly shat myself when I first saw it as a kid.

What I also like about the final sequence is that it's weirdly sexual. Ripley strips down to her underwear and then the Alien appears. And the Alien then begins almost stroking the console it's resting on. And of course, Ripley penetrates the Alien with a harpoon.

Another excellent bit of weird sexuality is when Ash the robot tries to choke Ripley with a magazine. He shoves it in her mouth and he looks rather turned on as she gags on it. Perhaps robots don't come with all the parts. Perhaps this is his way of venting his frustration. But there's also the way that the Alien kills Lambert. Its tail inches up the insides of her thigh and then you cut away and hear her screaming like she's being violated – the screaming is actually pretty chilling. And of course, Kane getting ripped open goes back to the male fear of childbirth. (The birth scene is still great. The blood, the sound and the way it takes the Alien two or three attempts to burst through is fantastic. But I do have to say that the way the Alien shoots off the table looks rather dodgy.)

Going back to the Lambert killing, though... As well as being chilling, this scene is also quite frustrating because Parker (Yaphet Kotto) gets killed as well. I mean, Parker is quite possibly the coolest man in the universe. I swear he could have taken the Alien had it not been for the cowardly Lambert. (It's quite surprising that the coward and the black character survive so long – they're usually the first two to go.)

But although I dig Parker, I think Ian Holm as Ash delivers the film's best performance. It's quite subtle the way that he hints at his true identity – I like the way he jogs on the spot to get his joints working. And he's so smug and slimy. He's more of a villain than the Alien.

But I think everything in the film is fantastic – the music, the special effects, the sequence on the alien planet, the production design, the moody atmosphere, the script. Everything works perfectly.